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I nodded, indicating for us to head somewhere private.
He followed, stepping out onto the back three-season porch.
“Car was registered to the grandmother of a guy in Crispin Worthing’s employment.”
“Crispin?”
“Who we still have locked down at the compound. Avery connected when I told him the latest. He’s making headway with both of the Worthings, but the biggest information they’ve given up is that Nicolai has a backer. One big major backer, bigger than anyone.”
“That’s not good.” Trace asked, “Mauricio reached out himself about the shooting tonight?”
“He did. I told him what happened, sent him the registration, and he was fine. The numbers collaborated with their security cameras.”
“Is he going to let Molly watch the security tapes?”
“They’re being compiled into photos and will be sent over as soon as they’re ready. He said they could have it all together within an hour.”
He whistled. “That’s fast. You told him we had eyes on his club?”
“I told him it was a coincidence, that I had a staff member driving by at the time of the shooting.”
Trace snorted. “No way will he buy that. Mauricio is smart.”
“I know, but Cole Mauricio doesn’t want to war with us. He’s brought up more business ventures he’d like to set up in New York.”
“It’s easier to work with the families you know than ones that are new and suddenly ambitious.”
“And unpredictable.”
“Still.” Trace shot me a grin. “You know Mauricio likes us.”
“He likes you more.”
I glanced back, watching Molly as she was smiling and telling Jess about Octavia’s customers. She was waving a potato skinner in the air. Jess took the weapon from her and gave her a bowl of romaine lettuce to tear apart instead. Jess took over the potatoes. Probably a smart choice.
“How’s Jess doing?”
Trace looked where I was watching. “She’s okay.”
I kept watching the both of them. “They change things, don’t they? Having them involved.”
“They don’t change who we are. They just make us better men.”
Maybe he was right, but I felt different. “This war is going too long.”
“Sometimes these can take years.”
I gave him a look. Molly would not stay in hiding for years.
Trace knew what I was saying to him and inclined his head, sighing. “Jess’s mom has to go back to the hospital. She insists on taking her.”
“Have one of your men take her.”
“She won’t go. It’s either Jess or no one. Jess knows this, so tomorrow afternoon, my woman is going to be exposed. I can send as many men as possible to protect her, but the truth is that if Nicolai Worthing has any smarts, he’ll have her mom under watch and they’ll report activity. He’ll make their move when they’re leaving.”
“So let Jess take her and switch up how she gets home.”
He looked my way. “He could hit her mom. Just be done with it, deliver a fatal blow because her mom refuses to go into hiding.”
“He could, yes; but then we’d reciprocate by killing his cousins.”
He nodded, another long sigh. “I know. Tit for tat. We’ve been hitting his businesses. Trying to hurt him that way.”
“Which is working,” I pointed out, and it was. “We made this decision to try to cut down on any extra lives lost, on both sides. Businesses. When they’re empty. That was what we decided on. And he’s losing his backers.”
“But he’s still coming at us.”
He was right. We’d taken our losses—20 percent of our businesses had gotten hit by his men—but we’d taken out 80 percent of his. No matter what Trace was saying, we were winning.
“I got a call from his supplier today.”
I grunted. “And?”
“He’s open to switching partners.”
That was a huge get. “When’d this call come in?”
“Twenty minutes ago. It’s why I came to find you.”
I studied him, seeing and feeling the shadows in his gaze. “What are you worried about?”
“Who he’ll strike out against when he’s on his last leg.” Trace’s gaze was directly on Jess. She had skinned the potatoes and was now slicing them up and putting them in a pot on the stove. “It’s tomorrow. She’s going out there, and I can’t lock her in a room, like I’d love to. We’ve fought so much about it, but it’s why I love her. Part of the reason. She loves and protects so hard. Damn anyone who tries to get in her way.”
“Let me have a conversation with her.”
He shot me a look. “Right. You just want to piss her off.”
Nothing wrong with riling up the cop.
“That shows that you haven’t changed that much.”
I went back to watching Molly. Everything shifted in me. “Yeah. I have.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MOLLY
“I’m going.” I was following Ashton around the room the next morning.
“You’re not.”
Over dinner last night, a very, very late dinner, I learned that Jess was going with her mother to the hospital. Right then and there, I knew I had to go. I couldn’t explain why. There was no rational logic for me to go, but I had to go. I just knew it. My gut was sparking something bad, and I didn’t think it was the lettuce I forgot to wash.
